Craig McCauley caught up with Heikell Transport 1993 Ltd driver Clay August as he was about to don his gumboots and wash out his stock crates at the company‘s Gisborne depot. As a youngster, Clay spent countless hours learning the art of trucking from his father Kohi, who drove for Farmers Transport at the time. Clay‘s driving career began with Heikell, initially out of Whakatane, before the opportunity became available to return home to Gisborne, where he now drives ‘The Wanderer‘, a Scania R730 towing a 5-axle trailer fitted with Nationwide stock crates.

Clay‘s work has him travelling over much of the North Island and when asked if he had a stretch of road that he enjoyed travelling the most, he said it had to be “up the coast”, meaning SH35 north of Gisborne, which runs around the East Coast to Opotiki. His favourite part of the job is carting sheep, especially the physical work of loading and unloading. Clay enjoys being part of the transport industry as he sees every day as a new challenge. Rather than choosing a vexing question from the usual New Zealand Trucking magazine selection, Craig thought truck transmissions was a worthy topic, so Clay was asked if he preferred manual or auto boxes? After a chuckle he replied “You feel more like a man with a manual”, but after experiencing the Scania Opticruise, he is firmly in the auto camp.

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